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Undated: Trump’s Conflicts of Interest in the United Arab Emirates Few countries have been more blatant about their desire to buy favor from President Trump with lucrative financial deals than the United Arab Emirates.
https://www.americanprogress.org/series/trumps-conflicts-of-interest/view/
Undated: In March 2018, The New York Times reported that Lebanese-American businessman George Nader "worked for more than a year to turn [Elliott] Broidy into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to interviews and previously undisclosed documents. ...High on the agenda of the two men...was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar and repeatedly pressing the president to meet privately outside the White House with the leader of the U.A.E."[35]
After Trump won the election, Broidy used his connections to the president to recruit international clients for his security business Circinus, promising that he could arrange meetings with Trump or other high government officials. He obtained defense contracts worth more than $200 million from the United Arab Emirates. Many of his clients had unsavory records.[36] He offered inauguration tickets to Denis Sassou-Nguesso, a Congolese strongman whose lavish lifestyle was paid by public funds. He arranged for an Angolan politician to meet with Republican senators and offered him a trip to Mar-A-Lago. Liviu Dragnea, a Romanian parliamentarian facing corruption charges, got to attend an inauguration party and pose for pictures with the president.[36] He reportedly offered to sell social media surveillance software, which can be used to identify political adversaries online, to the governments of Cyprus, Romania, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.[37]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Broidy
-- 2017 --
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June 14: Trump’s Conflicts of Interest in the United Arab Emirates
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2017/06/14/433966/trumps-conflicts-interest-united-arab-emirates/
-- 2018 --
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March 9: Trump scrapped a $2 billion deal with the UAE days before the secret Seychelles meeting that Mueller now has his eyes on
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-rejected-2-billion-deal-with-uae-developer-days-before-seychelles-meeting-2018-3
April 6: An investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign has loomed over his presidency.
Anti-Trump activists have made numerous references to alleged Russian control over the policies and attitudes of the Trump White House.
But since Robert Mueller was appointed head of the US Department of Justice's special counsel investigation into possible collusion in May 2017, the probe has widened to include people with ties to Israel, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.
Of all the connections between the major players being investigated by the Mueller probe, George Nader, the reported adviser of Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, serves a central role.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/mueller-web-trump-uae-connection-180405113651605.html
May 14: An ongoing dispute between the top three U.S. airlines — American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines — and Gulf carriers — Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways — over alleged unfair subsidies appears to have been resolved satisfactorily, but differences in the understanding of the terms linger.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2018/05/14/airline-groups-praise-president-trump-on-deal-with-gulf-carriers-but-questions-linger/#7a57e48c3822
May 19: Donald Trump Jr. and Trump aides were reportedly open to foreign help in 2016 election beyond Russia
According to a report from the New York Times, the president’s eldest son and other aides met with an emissary for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia who said the countries’ leaders wanted to help Donald Trump win.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/19/17372344/donald-trump-jr-saudi-arabia-russia-meeting
May 20: Today marks the 16-month anniversary of Donald Trump becoming the 45th president of the United States, and nowhere has our unlikeliest commander-in-chief placed a greater stamp on America's place in the world than his dramatic — and sometimes arbitrary and capricious, or so it seems — shifts in foreign policy. None of these seismic changes seemed more baffling than last spring's abrupt sellout of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar — a longtime ally where the U.S. Air Force Central Command and its 10,000 American troops are now based.
But suddenly, like the remarkable mid-speech policy reversal that occurs in George Orwell's 1984, we were, in a sense, at war with Qatar. We had always been at war with Qatar.
Trump stunned his own foreign policy team — including then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis — when he tweeted that Qatar is a sponsor of terrorism and seemingly endorsed an economic and political blockage of the tiny, oil-rich nation organized and led by two powerful neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, or UAE.
https://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/trump-tower-kushner-saudis-uae-qatar-nader-20180520.html
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May 25: In recent months, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump administration has focused on a broad web of payments from foreign governments and corporations to major players in Donald Trump’s orbit. Primary among them are Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney and fixer, and Elliott Broidy, a businessman and major Trump fundraiser.
After Trump won the election, both men were named deputy finance chairmen of the Republican National Committee, and quietly began making deals. Cohen signed up corporations including Novartis and AT&T, plus the government of Ukraine and an investment fund linked to a sanctioned Russian billionaire, to provide access and “insight” about the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Broidy won huge deals for his security firm Circinus, largely by working with Lebanese-American businessman and convicted pedophile George Nader to advance the interests of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in Washington.
https://qz.com/1287027/a-timeline-of-donald-trump-associates-elliott-broidy-and-michael-cohens-payments-from-foreign-countries/
June 13: Who Is Behind Trump’s Links to Arab Princes? A Billionaire Friend
The billionaire financier Tom Barrack was caught in a bind.
In April 2016, his close friend Donald J. Trump was about to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. But Mr. Trump’s outspoken hostility to Muslims — epitomized by his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants — was offending the Persian Gulf princes Mr. Barrack had depended on for decades as investors and buyers.
“Confusion about your friend Donald Trump is VERY high,” Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba of the United Arab Emirates emailed back when Mr. Barrack tried to introduce the candidate, in a message not previously reported. Mr. Trump’s image, the ambassador warned, “has many people extremely worried.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/world/middleeast/trump-tom-barrack-saudi.html
June 28: Donald Trump’s closest confidants were willing to exchange inside information about US government appointments with Yousef al-Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to Washington, a new set of leaked emails has revealed.
The president-elect's advisers also pledged to Otaiba that they would keep his government’s interests at the heart of the new administration’s Middle East policy. The emails reveal that the relationship between the Emiratis and the president’s inner circle was cemented earlier than previously thought.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/revealed-how-trump-confidant-was-ready-share-inside-information-uae
July 9: Disastrous Deal Staggers Trump Ally Thomas Barrack
Thomas Barrack has been one of the most prominent money men of the Donald Trump era. In the past two years, Barrack has been in the public eye like never before—fundraising for Trump’s presidential campaign, delivering a prime-time television address at the Republican National Convention and serving as chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee. Barrack introduced Trump to his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and facilitated conversations that strengthened Trump’s ties to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, helping to realign the Middle East.
But during the exact time Barrack was busy helping his friend Trump, he was also in the midst of the biggest deal of his business career, merging the real estate investment firm he spent his life building, Colony Capital, with another firm to form a $58 billion real estate colossus. The deal he struck in June 2016 has been nothing short of a disaster, decimating Barrack’s net worth and sending him scrambling to find a fix.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/09/disastrous-deal-staggers-trump-ally-thomas-barrack/#a875e8e191af
July 11: UAE to Trump: Sell Us some F-35 Fighter Jets
The US government knows the value of its Gulf allies, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Besides the oil trade, the military expenditures by the oil rich Middle East nations have strengthened the US economy.
The Emirates host US Air Force’s 380th Air Expeditionary Wing and the Trump administration recognizes the vital importance of the UAE coordinating American attempts to restrict their common enemy, Iran.
https://intpolicydigest.org/2018/07/11/uae-to-trump-sell-us-some-f-35-fighter-jets/
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July 18: Watchdog: Secret Service for Eric, Donald Trump Jr. trips cost $230,000 in 1 month
Per documents made public Wednesday by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Secret Service spent more than $200,000 when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump went to the United Arab Emirates to formally open the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai in February 2017.
According to the documents released through a Freedom of Information Act request, the protective agency spent about $125,000 on airfare, another $75,000 on hotel rooms, and $15,000 more on other expenses such as transportation.
A similar trip to Dubai to attend a wedding in April cost only $73,000, CREW reported. The nonprofit organization did not offer an explanation why the 2017 trip cost "significantly more."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/07/18/trump-sons-trips-secret-service-cost/796259002/
July 27: Trump seeks to revive 'Arab NATO' to confront Iran
The Trump administration is quietly pushing ahead with a bid to create a new security and political alliance with six Gulf Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, in part to counter Iran’s expansion in the region, according to U.S. and Arab officials.
The alliance would put emphasis on Gulf heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates working closer together with the Trump administration on confronting Iran.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gulf-alliance-idUSKBN1KH2IK
September 28: Two Princes: How a secret meeting signaled the UAE’s pull in Trump’s D.C.
A meeting in the Seychelles between the Blackwater founder and a Putin ally has drawn scrutiny. It also indicated another backchannel to the White House.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90233994/how-a-secret-seychelles-meeting-signaled-the-uae-pull-in-trump-d-c
October 30: Anyone wanting to gauge Donald Trump’s success in isolating Iran would do well to study the menu at Maryam Sharifi’s restaurant in Dubai.
“The community has become smaller and trade with Iran has dropped,” said Hossein Asrar Haghighi, a founder of Dubai’s Iranian Business Council. Members left for Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, even Malaysia and Canada. “That won’t be a major issue for the U.A.E.’s economy, but it will harm Iran.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-31/trump-s-success-in-isolating-iran-can-be-seen-on-a-dubai-menu
-- 2019 --
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January 9: The U.S.-China trade war and booming American shale production are among the top worries for the United Arab Emirates' energy minister and former OPEC president. After a volatile year for oil prices, hydrocarbon-exporting countries are buckling down for what could be more turbulence ahead.
In terms of geopolitical headwinds for 2019, "One is the potential of heated war between China and the United States," Suhail Al Mazrouei told CNBC's Hadley Gamble on Wednesday. Mazrouei finished his term at the helm of OPEC on January 1.
"We're not playing with President Trump or any other president," he said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/uae-oil-minister-on-president-donald-trump-and-opec.html
January 15: Mueller Reportedly Probing Illicit Donations to Trump Inaugural Event Related to Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE
Mueller is looking into whether Middle Eastern countries contributed money to Trump's events before he was sworn in, perhaps through U.S. donors
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/mueller-investigating-trump-inaugural-event-linking-israel-saudi-arabia-and-uae-1.6844696
February 26: United Arab Emirates' telecommunications giant Etisalat announced a deal with Huawei on Tuesday, signaling a blow to the Trump administration's efforts to curb the company's global influence in mobile broadband.
The new partnership between the UAE state-owned company and Huawei will allow for 300 new 5G towers to be built around the gulf nation within the first half of 2019. The effort will make the UAE one of the nations with the highest percentage of 5G coverage in the world.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/uae-telecom-company-partners-with-huawei-in-blow-to-trump-administration
May 24: Trump bypasses Congress to push through arms sales to Saudis, UAE
Lawmakers from both parties criticized the move, with Democrats calling it an abuse of presidential power.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-bypasses-congress-push-through-arms-sales-saudis-uae-n1010116
-- 2020 --
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